The Hardest Part
by Glamdring804
Summary: In the wake of the attack, Fireteam Dawnstar reunites in the highlands of Mars. This is the final story set during the early days of the Red War, and ties many threads from the previous stories together. I recommend reading In A Little While, Shadows and Tall Trees, Reconciliation, Plan B, and Bottom of the Night first.
1. Part 1

Telysa closed her eyes and breathed.

Slowly draw the air in. Up here in the Martian highlands, the air was thin. Desperate, almost. Hold the breath. Let it sink into her lungs. Now, picture the target. A gray stump of wood with several nicks cut in to it. Release the breath, and with it, movement.

Telysa whipped into action, spinning around and straightening her arm. She finished the motion with a flick of her wrist, imparting the momentum into the knife. It flashed across the clearing and clattered off the stump, then dropped to the sand with a thud.

Missed. Again.

She stared at the fallen knife. It almost seemed she was getting worse as she practiced. The first few times, she had at least managed to stick the blade in the wood, even if she had missed the center of the stump. Now she couldn't even balance the knife properly.

She sighed and rolled her shoulder in the socket. She could feel something catching in the joint. Azul had repaired the wound as best he could, but just like a normal injury, they hadn't set it right, and now it had healed with a hidden flaw. In order to truly fix the shoulder, she would have to die so Azul could rebuild her body from scratch.

But with the Traveler in Cabal hands, dying was a luxury they could no longer afford. She would, just like a normal person, live with the injury.

Telysa crossed the small circle of orange sand and retrieved her knife. The circular enclosure she'd dubbed the hideout's training ring was the hollowed out stump of an ancient tree. The ancient plant had rotted away after the Collapse, leaving the stump. Now countless saplings had sprouted from between the desiccated wood, casting the ring in dappled shadow.

She squeezed through a narrow gap between two sections of the stump, the wood rough against her bare shoulders. She'd been eager to get out of her armor after spending the morning crawling through claustrophobic tunnels. Now she wore a simple tank-top and shorts for exercise.

The world outside was vibrant green forest. Mars had faded after the Traveler retreated, but it was far from dead. Life, ever tenacious, adapted to the drying climate, becoming hardy and scrub-like. Now, in sheltered places like this valley, it flourished.

Telysa strolled between the gnarled acacias and spindly gum trees. They clung to the weathered stumps of the ancient trees. A new generation anchored to the generation past.

Her path led her to the cluster of stone and metal ruins at the head of the valley. Several freestanding pillars were scattered between the trees. Behind them was a broad façade cut into the valley wall. She stepped up the uneven steps in the middle and entered the low vestibule.

Her eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright sunlight to the pale gloom. The Vex structure extended for a couple kilometers into the mountainside, but Telysa had only really used the front two rooms. Yes, these particular ruins were abandoned, but that didn't mean Telysa _wanted_ to go plumbing their bowels.

She noted that Linvana had finished organizing the room. Over the years, Telysa had stocked the hideout with whatever spare supplies she could afford to leave behind. The result was a random collection of weapon parts, extra armor, stale food, and the occasional centurion's helmet. Not really suitable for a proper hideout, but it was all they had.

Linvana had brought up the supplies from the back room, and arranged all the crates along the left hand wall. The right side of the room was the improvised living space, with a red tarp hung on the wall, a double cot pushed in the corner, and a folding table with two metal chairs.

Telysa sat down in a chair with a groan. While it felt good to be moving again, her body was still sore from getting kicked off the Cabal cruiser.

There was a lantern and a canteen on the table. Telysa lit the lantern and took a long drink from the canteen.

After hiking down the valley to broadcast a message via their ship's high-gain sensors, Linvana had returned to the hideout and taken it upon herself to make a detailed map of the ruins. Cartography was traditionally a Hunter's roll, but half of Telysa's original map was labeled "Vexy stuff." So she was only _slightly_ annoyed Lin decided they needed a better one.

Twenty-four hours. That was how long they had agreed to wait after sending the transmission. When the time was up, they would return to Earth and start searching for survivors. Hopefully by then, at least a few of their teammates will have shown up. If not, well, they would have to assume the worst.

Telysa set the canteen down and slumped forward, chin resting on her folded hands. With her exercise routine complete, she needed something to do. Something to distract herself from worrying.

Her broken auto-rifle was still sitting on the edge of the table, where she'd dumped it the day before. She picked up one of the pieces. It had been a beautiful weapon, with a silvery bayonet and white bodywork she engraved with stars and planets. Auto-rifles never really had been her style, but this one was a gift from Linvana. That made it worth more to her than all the glimmer in the system. And now it was snapped in half, bodywork torn free and the frame in pieces.

Even with the proper tools, she wouldn't be able to fix it. But here, in a remote Martian canyon, it was hopeless. They needed weapons to fight the Cabal. She had a few parts stashed here, and some plasteel too. And with Azul conscious again, he could fabricate new parts from her glimmer. She wouldn't be able to fix her rifle, but maybe she could whip up _something_.

* * *

Linvana held the lantern high, revealing a boxy metal room that was actually pretty boring.

The harsh yellow glare of the sodium lantern glinted off the metal panels that made up that made up most of the floor and walls. The chamber was narrow and rectangular in shape, with a high ceiling. A narrow ledge jutted from one wall, forming an elevated walkway of sorts.

Linvana set the lantern down and scratched a note on the map in her hands, describing the room. "Tall, long and narrow." The rest of the sheet was covered with a spiderweb of lines and similar notations. Polaris had generated the base diagram using acoustic signals to map the complex of corridors and chambers. Now Linvana walked from room to room, recording any features of note.

She picked up the lantern and stepped back into the main corridor. Exploring the complex had gone a lot faster than she anticipated - she only had a single chamber left. It helped that most of the rooms were pretty unremarkable. There were a few with metal contraptions on the walls or ceilings, and even one with a pool of perfectly smooth water in the corner. Most of the structure was inactive, like a frame on standby. Like it was waiting for something.

She turned right down the corridor, traversing deeper into the mountain. The structure cut horizontally into the mountainside. The entrance penetrated the low wall of the forested dell. Some of the chambers in the front section overlooked the next valley over, which didn't share the water and life of its neighbor. From there, the corridor plunged straight back into the mountain. By Polaris's measurements, they were nearly a kilometer back.

The corridor descended a short flight of uneven steps. Why did Vex structures need stairs? Couldn't they just teleport everywhere?

A few places were lit with glowing filaments, a few of them white, but most of them orange. They created warm islands of light, separated by long stretches of shadows. The lantern cast fractured shadows across the layers of jutting metal that made up the walls and ceiling. Her boots clopped softly on the metal floor, the only sound in the vast silence.

The passageway finally opened into a sizable chamber. It wasn't big by Vex standards, but it was the largest she'd seen in the complex, about forty meters across. The yellow light of the lantern barely penetrated the gloom, casting gray shadows in the corners. Some sections of the floor were elevated, others were recessed. She stood in the hall's only entrance. It was empty, save for an inactive warp gate near the far wall.

Well the gate was different. It was the only one she'd seen in the complex. But, like so much of this place, it was darkened and dead. Vex ruins were supposed to be shifting, disturbing places. Where was uneasy atmosphere, the disturbing sense of slipping through something just beyond your perception as you walked?

To think she'd consider a perfectly normal complex of tunnels and caves to be an unusual find.

She noted the gate on her map, turned around, and started walking back up the corridor.

"Polaris," she said, holding up the map. "Digitize this, and combine it with your scan of the ruins."

Her Ghost appeared over her shoulder and scanned the folded sheet of paper. "And done," he said, "Annotations catalogued and cross-referenced."

"Did we miss anything?"

"According to my acoustic scans, no, that's everything."

"Right." She continued waking. The corridor wasn't perfectly straight. It would occasionally rise or descend a few feet, or shift to the left or right for some inscrutable reason. She passed numerous openings as she walked, short passages connecting to the various rooms.

Eventually, the corridor deposited her in an open courtyard. The rectangular space was cut straight from the mountainside. Three sides were bordered by covered walkways, while the fourth overlooked a stony ravine. Clumps of grass grew in the dusty ground, and a spindly tree had rooted the corner. The sun was low in the gray sky, letting scattered stars shine though as the afternoon faded into evening.

Three entrances, including the one she'd just come through, led away from the courtyard. Linvana turned off her lantern and set off down the rightmost one. The front part of the ruins weren't buried as deep in the mountainside, and were exposed to the air in some places. That let dim gray light illuminate the corridors.

Telysa was seated at the table in the front room. Several open supply crates sat next to her, and the table was covered with weapon parts. The Hunter looked up as Linvana approached.

"Ah, there you are," she said, standing up. She grabbed a tape measure and the frame of Linvana's Khvostov rifle.

Telysa handed the black rifle to Linvana. The weapon itself still worked, but it was missing its stock, which had broken during the attack.

"What are you doing?" Linvana asked, holding up the rifle.

"I am making you a new stock," Telysa explained, "We need as many working weapons as we can get. Now, hold the rifle as though you're aiming down the sights."

Linvana complied, raising the rifle and leaning in to peer down the scope. It was quite difficult without the stock to brace against her shoulder.

Telysa stepped around Linvana and held up the tape measure. She muttered to herself as she noted the distance from the end of the frame to Linvana's shoulder.

"Well," she said, stepping back, "I won't exactly be a perfect fit, but you won't have to fire from the hip anymore."

"Thanks," Linvana said. Telysa sat back down at the table and picked up a lump of weathered wood lying on the floor. She began making marks on it, presumably to carve the new stock.

Linvana rounded the table and examined the mess of parts laid out on top of it. There were quite a few scopes, magazines, and barrels, but not much else. "What are you working on?" she asked.

Telysa sighed. "Not much. I never left any good weapons here. Just a bunch of mismatched parts, and these -" She pointed at a pair of battered looking side-arms on the corner. "With Azul's help, I might be able to get this working -" She held up a fieldstripped submachine-gun. "- but I'll to take apart one of the side-arms to do that."

"Can I help?" Linvana asked.

Tel shook ruefully shook her head. "No offense, but you're not really a gunsmith."

Linvana smiled. "You just had to remind me."

Telysa chuckled and went back to work, whittling the block of wood with her knife. Linvana wandered away and started pacing. Now that she'd finished the map, her mind started to wander again. Why hadn't any of their teammates showed up yet? Would any of them show up? They wouldn't be able to hear any replies, with all the Vex interference over the region, so it was a waiting game.

And on top of that, they had no idea what was going on beyond this little valley. What was the situation on Earth? How many managed to escape the City? Was the City even still standing? Where were the Vanguard? How many Guardians were dead now, without the Light? Was there _anyone_ left to fight back?

Gah! She needed a distraction. Organizing the hideout's meager supplies had taken barely an hour. Mapping the place had taken three. What else was there to do? Start a journal maybe? But what would she write with? The hideout had neither pen nor paper.

She paused in front of the cot. The cracked and scratched yellow plates of her armor were stacked at the foot of the bed. By the looks of it, Telysa had already patched them up with plasteel scraps, though the suit was still in terrible condition. A dark red scarf sat folded on top of the stack. Linvana picked it up and unfolded it.

One end of the scarf was ragged and frayed, torn during the fall from Ghaul's ship. The other end was embroidered with silver thread, depicting a stately serpent and a majestic lion, wrapped in each other's embrace. A Hunter and a Titan, together in love…

A single tear leaked out of her eye. The scarf, it was a gift from Zavala for their wedding, not two months ago. Finally, the realization she'd been trying to avoid for the last two days sank in. They'd lost it all. The balcony where they'd gotten married. Gone. The garden where she proposed to Tel. Gone. The spicy ramen shop where'd they'd had their first real date. Gone. The dingy little bar in the Bauxite District, where Fireteam Dawnstar officially formed. The Tower. Gone.

The Last Safe City, the sole bastion of humanity, and the only home she'd ever known.

Gone.

Everything was gone.

Waves of emotion crashed over her. She sank onto the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. The people of the City, they'd trusted the Guardians to protect them. They failed. And she'd run away. Linvana the Titan was not a hero. She'd always hated when people called her that, because deep down, she knew the truth. She was a coward.

Something moved beside her. Telysa sat down on the bed and wrapped her arms around her waist. Linvana squeezed her eyes shut and started sobbing in her embrace, until it was all gone, and she felt empty and dry inside.

"Hey," Tel said when she'd finally finished. She reached up with one hand and brushed a tear off of Linvana's cheek. "They'll show up. I promise."

Linvana sniffled. "It's - it's not just them Tel. It's everyone. The City…"

"It's not as bad as it looked," Telysa tried to reassure her. Linvana started shaking her head, but Telysa gripped her chin and stared at her with her piercing blue eyes. "Listen. The Cabal, they didn't attack the City directly. They focused their forces on the Tower, and we stalled them for nearly three hours. That _was_ enough time for Dead Orbit to get most of the civilians out."

"How do you know?" Linvana accused, "It's not like we stuck around to help. We ran away, tails between our legs."

"I have to believe it Lin," Telysa said, her expression hardening, "Because if I don't, I won't be able to keep going. _We_ escaped. If we could get out of the City, that means everyone else did too."

Something calm and quiet settled in her chest. Not quite hope, but not quite despair either. Acceptance, or at least the beginning of it.

Linvana sighed and stared at the floor. "I guess you're right. We can assume things without knowing, for better or for worse. Thanks."

She kissed Telysa, then stood up and crossed to one of the crates. After a few moments of rummaging around, she found a fieldweave repair kit. She selected a thick needle and thread, then started walking towards the entrance.

"I'm going to get some fresh air," she called over her shoulder.

"Do you want me to sit with you?" Telysa asked, hovering beside the table.

"No," Linvana replied, "You can keep working. I'm fine. I promise." She flashed a meek smile at the Hunter.

Telysa nodded and started carving the stock again.

The sun shone low through the trees of the valley, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow across the front of the ruins. Linvana sat down on the steps. The faint breeze ruffled her hair and dried the tears on her cheeks.

She set the scarf and the thread down beside her, then unbuckled her mark and held it up.

Marks didn't just identify a Titan's order, they were part of their identity. A way of telling each their own personal story. She'd had this Sunbreaker's Mark for nearly two years now, as long as she'd held the flame in her heart. The color was starting to fade in some places, and the bottom edge was threadbare.

Who did this mark belong to now? She wasn't a Sunbreaker anymore, but it represented more than just her powers. When she took up the Hammer of Sol, she'd also taken an oath, to keep the flame and protect humanity for as long as she lived. Well the Light was gone now, locked away by the Cabal's cage. But if there were any survivors out there, she still had work to do.

She picked up the tattered scarf. It was about three feet long. She folded it length wise, then took the needle and started sewing it to the belt, right behind the Sunbreaker's Mark. For better or for worse, she wasn't just a warrior anymore. She'd sworn an oath to Telysa too. Maybe she needed to remember that more often.

When she finished, she stood up and fastened the belt around her waist. The ends of the scarf hung behind the Sunbreaker's Mark like tassels. It reminded her of the mark of her original Titan order, the Pilgrim Guard. The style was one rarely seen these days.

A noise came from the forest. Footsteps on the gritty ground. Linvana dropped her hand to the knife in her boot.

A woman stepped from between the trees. She wore a knee-length olive green coat, and had a black and gold Vex rifle slung across her shoulder. Her bronze skin glinted against the setting sun.

"So…" Elva said, "You're alive. Nice place you have here."

Linvana stared at the Warlock for a few shocked moments, then charged across the clearing and embraced Elva. She cried, but this time, it was for joy.

* * *

Telysa looked up as Linvana entered the room, trailed by a Warlock in a green coat. She dropped the half-built submachine-gun on the table and rubbed her temples.

"Well if nothing else," Telysa declared, "We can now beat Ghual to death with a dissertation on the non-linear topology of non-baryonic confluences."

Elva drew up short and swore. "You were drunk and half asleep when I read that thing to you. How the hell do you remember the title?"

Telysa stood up and stepped in front of Elva. "You're probably the most memorably boring person I've ever met. And I'm so happy to see you alive and unflatten."

Elva smiled, and they clasped arms. "Same to you Tel. Though really, it's more surprising that you two are alive, since I'm a robot, and you're squishy."

"Well I've had worse," Telysa said, rolling her shoulder. "Getting kicked off a Cabal cruiser certainly is an experience."

"Yeah…" Elva agreed, looking around the room. "Speaking of which, did you girls hit your heads when you landed? Because making camp in Vex ruins isn't something I'd recommend for your personal posterity."

"It's abandoned," Telysa explained, "Just like Bastion and the Timekeeper. And, as you might have noticed, it's cloaked from above. Which is quite helpful when you're trying to hide from an armada of angry space turtles.

"I was wondering about that," Elva said, "The Vex concealed this valley, but they didn't go so far as to isolate it from the timeline. It's almost like they're trying to protect it without drawing attention to the fact they're actually interested in it."

"We actually came to a similar conclusion," Linvana said, "And we think we know why they've hidden this valley. There's a cave system further up the gorge with a shard of the Traveler's shell."

Elva started. "A shard of the Traveler?"

"A small one," Linvana explained, "Like the one Damien found in the Chamber of Night."

"You do realize how bad that is?" Elva said, "Even a small shard is still connected to the Traveler and the Light. If the Vex are in possession of one, they could use it to kill the Traveler without setting foot on Earth."

"And yet they haven't," Telysa noted, "The Vex in this valley, they're kind of strange. They're not like the other Martian tin-cans."

Elva perked up. "Strange how? The Virgo Prohibition is already an anomaly among the Vex."

"It's…difficult to explain," Linvana said. "You'll see for yourself when we go to the shard. It's the reason we chose here as the rendezvous point. There's traces of Light left in the shard. Not enough to resurrect you or get your powers back, but you'll have full transmat and superluminal communications."

Elva glanced back at the door, where the light was rapidly fading now that the sun had set. "Is it possible to go tonight?" she asked, "Now you've got me worried about these strange Vex, and I'd rather see for myself."

"Well, I guess if we go now," Linvana said, "we could get back before it gets too late. But…"

She met Telysa's gaze, and she immediately knew what the Titan was thinking.

"I'll stay here," Telysa volunteered, "keep watch in case anyone else shows up."

"You sure?" Linvana asked, "You're more familiar with the area than I am."

Telysa shrugged. "I've only been in those caves twice. You know about as much as I do. Besides, I would rather not have to crawl through that place twice in one day."

"Okay," Linvana acceded, "Elva, do you need anything?" The Warlock shook her head. "Right. Let me grab my pack, and we'll get going."

They were gone a few moments later, climbing up the cliff above the pond, on the rope they had left there for that purpose. Telysa watched them disappear down the ravine in the deepening twilight pall. She glanced back at the western sky, where a faint shimmering arc of light rose from the horizon. Daylight faded quickly from the thin Martian air, but the dust high in the atmosphere stayed luminous for hours after sundown.

She stepped back into the front room and slipped on her fieldweave. The formfitting bodysuit was the base of any Guardian's outfit. Layers of advanced textiles protected the wearer from almost anything. Extreme heat, extreme cold, caustic Venusian rains, blistering Martian sandstorms, and brief stints in hard vacuum. It even had built in chest support, though in her case, there wasn't much to do in that department.

Right now though, she just wanted to ward off the evening chill.

Telysa slumped back down in her chair beside the table. The clutter of parts had spilled onto the lid of an empty crate, but still none of it was enough to build a weapon. The only thing she had enough parts for was the submachine-gun, but she had to decide if it was worth dismantling one of the side-arms

She stifled a yawn and cradled her head in her hands. She hadn't prepared for this place to be anything more than a waystop. It was a stash, a place she offloaded extra junk she couldn't fit on her ship. It simply didn't have the resources needed to build an arsenal or plan a counteroffensive against a Cabal armada.

Yet it was all they had. The Tower was gone, the City was lost to them. Zavala had sent out an order to evacuate the planet, then gone silent. Their plan comprised of sending an encrypted message to their fireteam, see if anyone answered, then fly back to Earth to search for survivors, and hope they weren't blown out of the sky along the way.

Yeah. Great plan.

They really had it easy before, didn't they? Go in the direction the Vanguard pointed them, shoot some big nasty, collect the reward for their bounty. Even when a Hive god-king invaded the system, the Vanguard was there, coordinating war efforts across the system from the security of their home.

And now here they were, scattered and afraid, without anyone to tell them what to do. Guardians liked to pretend they were independent and all, lone wolves prowling the wilds, but really, they were useless without a guiding hand. How many Guardians out there had truly taken initiative? She certainly hadn't. Even back when she tried the whole lone-wolf thing herself, she had just been going where the bounties told her. She wasn't a warrior; she was a weapon, something to be pointed at a target.

Things didn't even change when she met Linvana and joined her fireteam. Linvana was their captain, but she was just as uncertain as Telysa was. She'd seen it in her eyes. Linvana put on a brave face for the world, but she was a mess underneath that mask. Yeah, Linvana was great at planning ops, but actual leadership? Telysa knew her wife well enough to know when she was scared, and making decisions people's lives might depend on terrified her.

Everything was just one giant mess. That nagging fear welled up in the pit of her stomach. The lurking worry that everything was hopeless, and they and all of humanity were doomed. What would they really do, in the face of the enemies they fought? Scores of Fallen, legions of Cabal, hordes of Hive, endless ranks of Vex. They barely survived Oryx. And then Ghaul finished what the Taken King had started.

No! She stopped herself. She would not go down that road again. She would not give up hope, not until they were all dead. She had promised that to Linvana. For _her_ sake, she'd keep it together. Truth be told, she would do anything for Lin.

She rested her chin on her arms, her eyelids heavy. They would figure out a way through this. One step at a time. Start by finishing the submachine-gun. Then she would have Azul search for something he could convert to glimmer. Maybe he could synthesize a new weapon frame. And after that, sleep. Her dreams of the Traveler and the deep, deep water had kept her lying awake last night. She needed a good sleep. She was already so very, very tired…

"I'm trying to come up with a good pun, but now your mouth is open, and you're starting to drool."

Telysa jumped awake, banging her knees on the table. Before she could even try to think, reflexes had her hand-cannon in her hands and trained at the source of the voice.

Dellander, leaning in the entrance, raised his hands in mock-surrender.

"Shit." Telysa lowered her hand-cannon and put it on the table. "How long have you been standing there?"

"About five minutes." Dellander pushed off the wall and crossed the room. "As happy as I am to see you alive and well and snoring, where's the Captain? I have some intel she'll want to hear about."

"She's further up the valley," Telysa said, rubbing her forehead. How long had she been asleep? "She's with Elva, exploring some creepy Vex caves."

"This late at night? Must be one hell of a party."

"It's a long story."

Dellander smiled. "Trust me. Mine's longer."

* * *

Elva stepped out of the tunnel and leaned against the rough stone, her head reeling from an overload of information. _Focus_ , she told her self, _one step at a time. Lay out the facts, then draw your conclusions_. Overhead, thousands of stars twinkled in the cold night sky.

"I have been studying the Vex my entire life," she declared, "And that was the strangest thing I've seen by several factors of magnitude."

"The whole time I was worried they were going to vaporize us," Linvana said, emerging from the tunnel. She glanced over her shoulder and shuddered. "I kinda still am."

Elva took a deep breath and organized her thoughts. It had to be part of a pattern. Eveything had a reason. You just had to look for it.

"The last time I saw the Vex show anything but aggression towards Guardians," she said, "I was in the Vault of Glass, and they were letting me enter so I could purge the Vault of Taken. What those Vex just did was something else entirely. They deferred to us. They…knelt to us?"

"You're the expert on the Vex," Linvana said. She started down the ravine, yellow sodium lantern bobbing in her hand. "I was hoping you could tell us what was going on."

"I'm not sure," Elva said, following Linvana. "You said they did the same thing the last time?"

"Yep. Tel says they did it when she discovered the place too." Linvana hesitated. "As we were leaving, they also gave us a crystal."

"A crystal?" Elva asked, "Can I see it?"

"Yeah." Linvana handed the lantern to Elva and shrugged off her backpack. She fished out a triangular crystal shard as they walked. Elva traded the lantern back for the crystal.

It was jagged and triangular, a little bit larger than her hand, and roughly the same shape. The smoky color was stained pale blue, whereas the other crystal in her pocket was burnt orange. The orange crystal came from the Incendiary Revision, a programing collective on Mercury that had been tasked to master the Solar force.

The Vex back in the cave _did_ look like they could be their Arc force counterparts. Blue and silver armor, with similar conduits across their bodies.

But why would they just give Linvana and Telysa the crystal? And why would they hide a shard of the Traveler, yet let Guardians freely approach?

"You said Telysa's Ghost called these ruins a nexus of some sort," Elva said, "Did he say what kind of nexus?"

"She called it a 'fractured nexus.' Some sort of vertical cross-something," Linvana replied.

Elva nodded. "It's a fractal nexus. A vertical cross-roads. We _think_ they're a type of central node in the greater Vex networks. Erytheia, how are you feeling?"

"Better," her Ghost said softly. "We're not at full power, but its like we've taken the earplugs out. I can _feel_ the world around me again."

"Good. Do you think you could search Osiris's notes?" Elva asked, "See what he has on fractal nexuses?"

"Sure," Erythia said, "Give me a minute."

Linvana glanced back at Elva. "Osiris? What does he have to do with this?"

"When I woke up in the rubble and couldn't find you and Tel, I ran to my ship and fled to Mercury," Elva admitted, "It was…the only place I could think to go. I went to the Lighthouse. He left a file of notes on Vex technology for me, embedded in a conflux."

"Every time I hear Osiris's name, there's some sort of trouble brewing," Linvana muttered. She frowned. "You said he left the notes for _you_?"

"I…" she began.

I'm a Vex construct, built as an experiment to try to understand the Light, then given life and consciousness by my Ghost. Now I'm not sure if I'm a Guardian or a Vex puppet, but Osiris has been secretly watching me my entire life.

Was she ready to tell Linvana her secret? Was she ready to tell anyone?

"I don't know," Elva lied, "I guess he just left his notes as a backup or something."

"Huh. Well, wherever you got them from, I won't complain if they help."

"Maybe," Elva agreed.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only sounds were the bubbling stream and the crunch of gravel under their boots.

"I found something," Erytheia chirped, "The notes describe fractal nexuses as lynchpins that connect sections of the greater Vex networks. Routing points for the gate systems, essentially. Osiris theorizes that removing one would create an independent sub-network that acts as a limited copy of the main network. Doing so would isolate the nexus, but leave the greater network largely unaffected."

"That must be what happened here," Elva mused as they walked. "The ruins down below look abandoned because only a minimal amount of their computational power is being used to support this network."

But why? By removing the nexus, the Vex were essentially hiding the shard of the Traveler from themselves. Why would they deliberately hide such a powerful advantage over the Light?

They continued walking, turning a corner and carefully climbing down a place where the ravine floor dropped a few feet.

"So those Vex back there," Linvana said after a while, "They're the counterpart to the Incendiary Revision we fought on Mercury, right?"

Elva nodded.

"I'm guessing their job is to study the Arc," Linvana continued, "But the Virgo Prohibition already harnesses the Arc storms. Why would they another collective to fix a problem they already solved?"

"They're searching for complete control," Elva said, "Remember how the Incendiary Mind drained our Soar energy? They want to accomplish the same thing here. They don't want to just channel the Arc energy, they want to _be_ the Arc energy."

"Huh," Linvana grunted, "I wonder how the shard helps them then."

Elva froze. "What did you just say?"

"The shard," Linvana said, stopping in front of Elva. "The Vex were guarding it. They must think it's useful to them somehow."

"Linvana," Elva said, "I think you might be on to something."

"Am I?" she replied, "I'm more accustomed to dissecting Vex bodies than dissecting their motives." She started walking again. Elva scrambled to catch up.

Linvana's words tugged at something in the back of Elva's mind as they rounded a bend in the ravine. The Vex in the cave valued the shard of the Traveler. She could almost put her finger on why…

"The Virgo Prohibition must have hit a road-block," Elva thought aloud, "so this Arc Revision, they started looking for other ways to control the Arc. And the shard is one of them…"

In front of her, Linvana held up her hand, silencing Elva. Distant voices drifted up the ravine. Linvana switched off the lamp, and they rounded the last bend. The ravine opened up in front of them, revealing a darkened canopy of desert trees. Elva hadn't realized they were close to the valley.

Warm yellow light spilt out of the Vex ruins to the right. The voices came from within.

"There's someone down there," Linvana said quietly.

"It could just be Telysa and her Ghost," Elva whispered back.

"Let's go find out," Linvana said. She grabbed the rope that was tied to jutting rock and rappelled backwards down the cliff. She hit the bottom with a crunch.

Elva followed, stumbling a bit as she hit the ground. Traveler, not being able to glide was awkward.

Linvana strode towards the ruins. She didn't seem worried, though Elva drew the Mythoclast anyways. Couldn't hurt to be too careful.

Inside, Telysa was still seated at the table. Across from her sat a second Hunter, with wavy blonde hair and an ochre yellow cloak.

"…not a bubble, but an actual, solid shield," he was saying, "Covered with patterns and about this wide -" He up his hands and stopped as he noticed Elva and Linvana standing in the door.

"And they're back!" he said with a smile. He stood clasped Linvana's arm. "Captain."

"Dellander," Linvana said, "Good to see you alive and well."

"Same to you," Dellander replied. He glanced over the Titan's shoulder. "Elva. Long time no see. Been what…two months since Mercury?"

Elva smiled sheepishly. "I uh, sorry. Haven't had much time outside of my studies.

"Huh. Well, I guess it just took another crisis to throw us all together again. Nothings changed there." he said. He turned back to Linvana. "Captain. I'm not sure what your plans are, but I there's a place I learned of back on Earth that could use our help."

"We can discuss it in the morning," Linvana insisted, "You look exhausted. There's plenty of room in these ruins. Find a spot and get some sleep. Hopefully by tomorrow, we'll have heard from the others."

"Right. I guess that means I need to run back to my ship to grab my cot," Dellander noted, "'cause I am not sleeping on this hard metal."

"I'll come with you," Elva added, "I need a bed too, and I want to grab some tools."

* * *

Half an hour later, Elva leaned back on a metal folding chair as Erytheia scanned the orange and blue crystals.

Linvana was right when she said there was plenty of space in the ruins. There were literally dozens of chambers of all shapes and sizes. The one she had chosen was square, with a low ceiling. An elevated platform in the back right corner was a good spot for her bed. A grid of orange particle fields glowed in the left wall, filling the space with warm ambiance. The rest of the back wall was spanned by a low metal shelf that made the perfect workbench. The bench held the crystals as Erytheia probed them with stabs of blue light.

"Well," Erytheia said as she finished, "Chemically, they're identical. The crystal itself is di-hadium oxide, the same stuff the Hive use in their rituals, minus the impurities. The difference in color stems from differences in the quantum state of the hadium atoms. The orange one reacts strongly to infrared radiation, and the blue one is electrically conductive along two of its axes."

"Solar and Arc," Elva muttered, "The Vex tuned the crystals to two of the elements." She frowned. "You said this is Hive crystal?"

"It's a perfect match," Erytheia confirmed, "but we knew that already."

"I know, but there's something we're not seeing here. Why would the Vex need special crystals to control the elements? The Vex aren't paracausal, and without paracausal phenomena, the 'elements' are just ordinary physics to them. So why copy the Hive?"

"This isn't the first connection between the Hive and the Vex," Erytheia noted, "The Hive history book Damien found on the Dreadnaught claims the Vex's omnicidal campaign is an emulation of the Hive's sword logic. Something about ensuring their survival by being the only life forms left in the universe."

Elva stood up and started pacing. The connection between Sword Logic and the Vex's goals was tenuous at best. She still had numerous debates with other Vex scholars on the subject. There was something else though…

She snapped her fingers. "The Sol Divisive."

"What about them?" Erytheia asked.

"They worshiped the heart of the Black Garden. Religiously, with fanatical devotion. They could only have learned that from the Hive. The Incendiary Revision, and the Vex in those caves, they must share a common root with the Sol Divisive, because they both use Hive-based behaviors."

"That makes sense," Erytheia said.

"Maybe," Elva muttered, stroking her chin. "If the Vex here are emulating the Hive, then why would they protect the shard of the Traveler? They haven't used it to destroy the Traveler, like the Hive on the Moon tried to. What else could they gain from it?"

"Linvana thought the Inductive Revision hid the shard because it was useful to them somehow. And you agreed with her."

"Well," Elva said, "the Inductive Revision's goal is to presumably master the Arc force. Without paracausal interference, the Arc force is just electric charges and fields, which they can already manipulate. Maybe they thought the Light could help them master it in a new way? But I don't see how it would help, since they can't model paracausal phenomena…"

It clicked like a light bulb turning on.

"The Inductive Revision," she blurted, "They're worshiping the Traveler!"

Erytheia stared at Elva.

"What?" she said flatly.

"It makes sense," Elva insisted, dashing back to the bench and picking up the orange crystal. "The Sol Divisive, have a directive to worship paracausal entities, and the Revisions were branched off of the Divisive. They were tasked with mastering the three paracausal elements, but with the Arc force, they hit a wall. So, they took inspiration from the beings that so deftly use the Arc to destroy their ranks, and turned to the Light!"

She set the crystal down. "But something went wrong. Instead of studying the Light, they started worshiping it. _That_ is why they didn't attack us, and _that's_ why they disconnected this nexus from the networks. They couldn't let the other Vex discover what they'd become, so they hid themselves."

"…Okay," Erythia said, "I guess it's technically plausible, but…the Taken are also paracausal, but you don't see the Vex trying to worshiping _them_. There has to be more to it than just a happy accident. There's no precedent for it."

"You mean a precedent like say…the Vex building a body designed to channel the Light, and that body getting resurrected as a Guardian?" Elva countered.

Erytheia hesitated. "When you put it that way…"

Elva sighed and collapsed in her chair, suddenly feeling very tired. "I don't know." She rested her elbows on the bench and cradled her head. "I just don't know anymore, Erytheia. I _want_ to know. I want to stay here and keep studying this place. Pacifist Vex that are hiding a shard of the Traveler. It's the _perfect_ distraction for me. But…the City is gone, and now we have a war to fight. Things will never be the same."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Erytheia asked, "Sit around and mope?"

"What _can_ I do? I'm not a warrior, I'm just a scholar with fancy powers."

"You know, Osiris left us some notes on these crystals," Erytheia said, not too subtly changing the subject, "He had some ideas on how we could draw power from them."

Elva sat up straight, a spark of curiosity burning away her fatigue. "Power. Could we build weapons from them? Weapons to fight the Cabal?"

"Sure. If we had the right parts."

"So we need something that can interface with the Vex tech. If we had access to a lab an the City, we could maybe build something, but where would we get those materials out here…"

Elva trailed off as she realized she was sitting in a room made of thousands of layered metal parts. Flawlessly engineered machinery, made by the same beings who had created the crystals in the first place.


	2. Part 2

Dellander knew as soon as he laid down that he wouldn't be able to sleep.

In theory, he should have drifted right off to la-la land. He still felt the after-effects of losing his light. On top of that, he had spent the day trudging across the African savannah, followed by an nerve-wracking spaceflight past fleets of Cabal ships that would have blown him out of the sky if they'd detected him.

And yet his brain refused to turn off. He could feel that strange block in the back of his head, a wall separating him from sleep. He'd learned insomnia wasn't unusual among Guardians, especially Hunters. Some nights it was better than others.

Tonight was clearly not one of those.

Eventually, he sat up and swung his legs off the narrow aluminum cot. He needed to clear his head. A nice walk should do the trick.

There was an electric lantern on the floor beside the bed, but he didn't reach for it. He crossed the boxy room in the darkness. It wasn't _his_ room per se, just a place to spend the night. They probably wouldn't be staying here too long. At least he hoped they didn't.

The corridor outside was open to the chill night sky. He was in the front part of the ruins, where some of the rooms were open to the sky. To his right, the horizontal shaft plunged deeper into the mountain, vanishing in thick shadows. He went that way.

The darkness quickly enveloped him. It was broken only by the occasional glowing filament. They splashed orange light across the darkness like paint on a canvas.

For a while, he just wandered aimlessly in the darkness. He wasn't sure exactly which way he was going. He probably should have been worried about getting lost. With the Vex, he could accidentally trip on a step and stumble through three centuries. Not two months ago, he'd stepped through a gate and ended up 500 years in the past.

These ruins though, they didn't feel that kind of creepy. Granted, they were still a bunch of dark spooky tunnels, but for some reason, he wasn't afraid of slipping through some mind breaking Vex trip. This place was far more solid, grounded in the here and now. Strange.

He paused when he noticed a more substantial glow ahead. Warm light spilt out of an opening on the left side of the corridor. He approached it and peaked into the room.

The light came from a lantern and a sheet of orange glowey stuff on the right-hand wall. The lantern belonged to Elva, who sat hunched over a workbench against the far wall. Dozens of metal parts were scattered across the bench. The parts looked like…pieces of the walls and ceiling?

What was she working on anyways? He was a Hunter, so insomnia was par for the course for him, but what would pique a Warlock's interest enough to ignore sleep altogether? He could come up a dozen reasons, but he wasn't sure any of them applied to Elva. Come to think of it, he actually didn't know Elva all that well. She spent most of her time apart from the team, clambering across Vex ruins or sequestering herself in some stuffy library.

For an extended moment, he just stared at Elva, who was engrossed in whatever she was doing. He could just slip away, vanish unnoticed into the night. Finally, curiosity got the better of him.

"Don't you robots ever sleep?" he asked, stepping into full view.

Elva looked up from her workbench and blinked several times.

"You're one to talk," she said, "It's three in the morning."

Dellander shrugged. "Eh, sleeplessness comes with being a Hunter I guess."

"That doesn't surprise me," she muttered, turning back to her tinkering, "Hunters do need an inordinately large number of waking hours to groom their massive egos."

He chuckled at that and leaned in the doorway. Those _were_ little pieces of Vex architecture. He could see the places where she'd ripped them out of the walls.

"Can I come in?" he asked after a moment. She motioned for him to enter without looking up.

Dellander stepped into the room and casually glanced over Elva's shoulder. Two jagged crystals sat on the bench before her, one dark orange, and the other murky blue. She was using a welding pen to attach a plate of metal to the thick wires wrapped around orange crystal. The blue one already had a similar construct attached. Her Ghost hovered over the bench, projecting a page of text.

"Isn't that the thing we ripped out of the Incendiary Mind?" Dellander asked, pointing at the orange crystal.

"Yep," she said, "And this one Linvana and Telysa found in the caves further up the valley."

She scrolled down the page displayed by her Ghost, peered at a diagram for a moment, and selected a small disc form her collection of parts. The welding pen sparked as she fused the piece to the rest of the metal.

"So if you don't mind my asking…" he began. Elva didn't object, so he continued. "What exactly is the deal with you and sleep? I know I've seen you do it, so that means you get tired like the rest of us. How are you awake right now?"

"Well," Elva said, setting down her tool and cocking her head in thought, "I suppose you could say I reprogram myself. I tell myself I don't need to sleep and then…I don't need to sleep."

"That's interesting. You can just decide not to sleep?"

Elva nodded.

Dellander sighed. "I wish I could do that the other way. Tell myself to just close my eyes already. Especially for nights like this…

"This reprogramming thing," he added after a moment, "How come I've never heard Brontis or Mariel talk about it."

Elva chewed on her lip, a peculiar expression on her metal face. "Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure they have the ability."

"Why's that?"

She hesitated. "If you asked a historian, they would probably tell you that my frame was a prototype, an advanced test platform that engineers were using to develop new technologies before the Collapse."

"And what if I asked you?"

Her eyes flickered for a moment, then she looked up and met his gaze. "I would tell you I'm not like the others."

"Okay then…I have another question for you, while we're discussing all this Exo-ey stuff."

Elva raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

"You say that, uh, Exo bodies are supposed to be, um, what's the word, proxies for normal bodies? Imitations, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"So does that mean you can uh, get intimate with other people?"

She frowned. "Are these the kinds of thoughts that usually keep you awake at night?"

"I'm serious," he insisted, flushing slightly, "It's been bugging me for a while. I actually want to know."

"Well," she said, turning to face him and resting her hands on her lap, "I've felt pain, discomfort, joy, anything that a normal human should be able to experience. What do you think?"

She sat there facing him, with her slender figure, warm amber eyes, polished bronze skin, her face so close to his…

He leaned in and kissed her.

She stiffened for a moment, then she melted into it, reaching up and caressing his neck. Her lips were warm and smooth and surprisingly gentle to the touch.

He slowly pulled away when they finished, breath caught in his throat. Where the hell did that come from?

She leaned back and smiled a little, her breathing light and excited.

They continued to stare into each other's eyes. For some reason, his insides suddenly felt warm and fuzzy.

"Welp," he said abruptly, standing up, "I should probably try to get at least a little sleep before morning." He crossed to the door.

"Dellander," Elva called after him.

He paused in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Do you still have those parts you took from the Incendiary Mind's arm?"

"Uh, I think they're in my belt. In fact, I'm pretty sure I left all my other souvenirs, uh, in my room at the Tower."

"Good. Bring them to me tomorrow, along with your gun. I have an idea that you might like."

"Okay…just, whatever it is, try not to hurt the pistol. I've had it for a long time."

"I'll do my best."

He nodded and started walking again.

"Oh and Dellander?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll see you in the morning?"

Dellander smiled.

"See you in the morning."

* * *

Brontis eased the dented and scorched interceptor through the bend of the rocky canyon. The broad, wedge shaped craft was heavy and durable. Unfortunately, that meant they maneuvered like a boulder. With visibility so low in the early morning light, he'd nearly crashed half a dozen times.

It didn't help that there were two Guardians dozing on the hood of the vehicle. It couldn't have been comfortable, and it sure as hell wasn't safe, but apparently, Cannard and Ulaina were just _that_ tired.

Not that Brontis wasn't tired of course. He just preferred to ignore it at the moment.

He approached the next bend slowly, putting the slightest pressure on the controls. The thrusters flared, and he just barely avoided clipping the wall. The vehicle was used by psions, the spindly Cabal slaves, but it was just as brutish as everything else Cabal.

The narrow canyon opened up past the bend, depositing them in a long, rocky valley. Shoulders of brown stone rose on either side, and he could just make out three dark shapes towards the far end. Unfortunately, he couldn't distinguish any details in the half-light. He pointed the interceptor towards them and eased forward on the throttle.

The thrusters throbbed, and the little armored craft took off across the stony ground. Jutting stones and dead trees flew past. They skimmed across the valley in no time at all, and the dark shapes resolved into a trio of jumpships.

Brontis let the interceptor decelerate as they drew near the parked ships. The battered orange and blue Arcadia was Captain Linvana's. The dull orange one was Elva's, and the gray and dirty green one belonged to Dellander.

The interceptor came to a stop. For a moment, the only sound was the quiet hum of the craft's engines.

He examined the two Guardians sleeping on the hood. Cannard's face was scrunched up, his gray Awoken skin ghostly in the predawn pall. Even though he was asleep, the Titan's hands were clutched tightly around a gray auto-rifle. He looked calm, serene even. Ulaina on the other hand, looked like crap. An ugly bruise on her cheek discolored her tan skin, and her dark hair was a mess, most of it having come out of the braid she kept it in. Her dusty purple trench coat was covered with scuffs and dust.

Once again, his teammates had ended up relying on him. No matter how fast he ran from responsibility, it always caught up with him. Oh well. If he didn't do it, who else would?

Brontis cut the power to the interceptor, and Ulaina and Cannard were immediately awake. They stiffly sat up, blinking sleep from their eyes.

"Are we there?" Cannard asked. He frowned when he noticed the parked jumpships.

"We're close," Brontis answered, "The Captain's coordinates are just to the east."

"I guess that means we go up the canyon," Ulaina said, nodding towards the narrow gap in the cliff a short distance away.

Ulaina rolled off the hood of the interceptor and landed awkwardly on her right foot. She yelped in pain, then muttered a string of Spanish curses under her breath. She grabbed the antique wood and brass rifle they'd found in the Cabal base, and started limping towards the canyon.

Cannard exited much more carefully, supporting his weight on his arms and lowering himself to the ground. He took a moment to steady himself, then followed Ulaina.

Brontis yawned and rubbed his eyes. Almost. No time for that yet. He dragged his plasma grenade launcher off the interceptor, checked the shotgun on his back, and followed his companions.

The canyon was exactly what you'd expect to find on Mars. Dry gravel bottom, smooth walls with layered colors, and the occasional dead tree trunk wedged in the corner.

However, what he did not expect to hear was the sound of rushing water.

Ulaina and Cannard were waiting around the next corner. The canyon floor had crumbled a short distance ahead, diverting the gushing stream down into the bowels of the planet. Moss and climbing plants grew all over the walls of the sinkhole. The water came from up the canyon, where shrubs and grass grew along the edges.

A narrow lip of stone ran along the far side of the sinkhole. They made their way across it and continued. There were even a few trees in places. Thin and spindly, not broad and squat like the ancient, dead stumps.

The sun crested the distant horizon as they wound through the ravine. The rocks along the top of the walls glowed with bright orange light, though the bottom remained in shadow.

Then finally, the canyon deposited them in a narrow valley. The ground exploded with desert life. Groves of thorn bushes grew from the remains of huge, hollow stumps that had almost completely rotted away. Tall, coarse brown grass waved in the breeze. The fresh sunlight shone through the spiky tree leaves, casting dappled shadows across the stone and dusty ground.

It reminded Brontis of a grotto on the slopes of Elysium Mons. He hadn't been there in twelve years, but he remembered it like yesterday. He had, after all, been brought back to life there.

"Well," Cannard said, "I'm guessing this is the place."

"They have to be around here somewhere," Ulaina noted, "Come on."

The valley was nice. Idyllic was the word. It was exactly the kind of place you could relax and frolic the day away. Yuck.

A short time later, they found the stand of Vex ruins built into the back wall of the valley, right next to a clear little pond. There was noise and movement inside. Captain and her girlfriend stepped out. He still hadn't figured how to spell the Hunter's name.

Wait a sec, didn't they get married two months back? When half the team was on patrol?

Captain crossed her arms and grinned. "Well I'm glad to see the three of you alive, what the hell happened to you? You look like shit."

"Violence," Brontis said, "Violence and explosions."

"I believe it," Talizza said.

"We were in the middle of a strike when we lost our Light," Cannard explained.

"Got caught in a firebase like a bunch of _gilipollas_ ," Ulaina muttered, her expression hardening.

"Well, you can give us the details later," Captain said, "Come in. Rest and freshen up. Get some sleep if you need it."

Captain and Tellesa turned around and led them into the Vex building. The front room was low and broad, with narrow gaps in the walls. That was good. It would be easy to defend.

"With the three of you, we're just missing Mariel and Daimen," Tel noted. He would go with Tel for now. He was too tired to keep trying.

Ulaina hesitated. "They were on the Dreadnaught. _Cristo_ , we were in a jam in that firebase, but that festering tomb is the last place I would want to be without my Light."

"They'll show up," Cannard said quietly, "They always do."

For a moment, everyone was silent.

"So," Captain said, "There's a small shard of the Traveler up the valley. Your Ghosts can use it to get their capabilities back. Though…you still won't have your powers. Or resurrections."

"A Shard?" Ulaina asked, "Here on Mars? If one landed all the way out here…our whole timeline for the Collapse could be wrong."

"Well we think it might have something to do with the Vex that built this place," Tel explained, "Elva might be able to…"

They kept on chitchatting. Brontis ignored them and walked over to the back left corner of the room. The floor there was pretty flat. He set his grenade launcher down and slipped the shotgun off his back.

He laid down on the hard metal floor, closed his eyes, and was out in moments.

* * *

"What do you think?" Elva asked?

"Give me a minute," Dellander murmured, trying to ignore her voice. He closed his eyes and adjusted the hand-cannon in his grip. It was different.

The carved wooden handle still fit his hands perfectly. The brass chamber and hammer were the same as before, oiled and polished for quick operation. The difference was further away, in the barrel.

The previously unadorned frame now bore a pair of narrow bronze strips, attached on the rail supporting the sights. The gun underneath was still the same, but the twin pieces of Vex metal made all the difference.

Dellander fidgeted and eyed the targets thirty feet away, glinting in the midday sun. They consisted of eight palm sized metal plates Elva had wedged in into the side of a downed log. He still wasn't sure why he'd just let Elva tinker around with his hand-cannon, but well, life was short. Now more than ever.

He raised his gun and let his body to loosen. You couldn't be tense in a firefight. Tension made your movements sharp and jerky. Relax. Your body knows what to do.

 _Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang._

Dellander inhaled and lowered the pistol. Five of the metal plates now had dents in them. He had missed the other three. In a fight, that meant death.

"Well?" Elva asked.

"It's close," Dellander answered, "but something's off."

"Is it the weight? Maybe we could shave some of the metal from underneath the circuits…"

"I don't mind the extra weight…"

Dellander glanced at Elva and trailed off. She stood underneath a nearby tree, bare bronze arms folded across her chest. She wore her under-layer, a simple sleeveless tunic and leggings, and smiled when he looked at her.

Something warm and fuzzy bloomed in his chest.

Damnit! What was wrong with him? It was just Elva. He'd never thought of her that way before. Hell, she was a robot!

So why couldn't he stop thinking about that kiss last night?

He forced his attention back to his pistol. The metal strips glinted in the barrel. There wasn't much to the strips, but…

He twirled it around his finger a few times then snapped it into a ready stance. Sure enough, his aim was too low.

"It's the balance," he said, "You put the metal on the barrel, and you didn't add anything to counterweight it."

Elva sagged. "Of course. I should have thought of that."

"Eh, you're not a gunsmith," Dellander said. He holstered the pistol and started walking back to the ruins.

"No, but I'm trying to learn," Elva said, trailing after him, "Osiris's notes contain descriptions of almost every piece of Vex technology. If I can learn to understand the machines as he did, I could build anything. I'm starting with weapons, but one day, we could build portals to the other side of the galaxy!"

"Well that sounds fun," Dellander said. "So what exactly did you do to my gun?"

Elva bit her lip. "I uh, I actually don't know."

"Wait. You messed around with my gun, and you didn't even know what you did to it?"

"Well," Elva explained, "I found a concept in Osiris's notes for a sort of neural network based of the architecture of Vex circuits. The parts don't do anything for now, but in theory, as you use the pistol, they will adapt and develop new functions to better suit the gun's function."

"So…you gave my gun a brain, as an experiment."

"I wouldn't exactly say that. The radioloria is the actual cognitive substrate of the Vex. Everything else is just architecture to enable the mind fluid. You could say I gave your gun a…signal booster. Though I have no idea what a gun's 'signal' looks like."

Dellander grunted. Wasn't sure if any of that would help them fight the Cabal. As long as it didn't hurt though.

It was actually kinda nice in this valley. He hadn't been able to appreciate its beauty in the darkness. Walking between the trees, dappled sunlight through the leaves, a faint breeze taking the edge off the dry heat. It was peaceful and calming, and completely at odds to their desperate situation.

He found himself glancing at Elva as they walked. She inspected the forest as they passed, taking particular note of the occasional Vex column sticking up out of the ground. She bore a slight smile.

Her face was so different from a human's, but it was still somehow beautiful. The lines and curves were sculpted with a perfection that bone and flesh could never achieve. And he couldn't help but notice her body. Slender and perfectly proportioned. What else would you expect from a robot?

Damnit. Where the hell was this coming from?

They entered the front room of the ruins. Brontis was no longer snoring in the corner, as Linvana was taking him, Cannard, and Ulaina to the shard in the caves. The entered the corridor leading into the ruins proper and made their way towards Elva's room.

"So this place," Dellander said as they made their way to Elva's room. "Was it built by those weird blue Vex in the caves?"

"It's hard to say where anything related to the Vex begins or ends," Elva said, "But those Vex _were_ the ones that removed this place from the greater Vex networks."

"I've seen those networks," Dellander said, "I touched them back on Mercury. They have no beginning or end."

"And yet you survived," Elva said, "It's a small miracle you're not a raving lunatic."

Elva paused to pull aside the curtain she'd hung across her room door. Apparently Dellander's visit last night reminded her of the need for privacy.

There were three crystals on her workbench now. The new one was long, cylindrical and smoky purple. The orange and blue ones now had handles attached, and the purple one looked like it was the handle.

"Where'd the third crystal come from?" Dellander asked.

"Ulaina found it in a firebase in Ares Channel," Elva explained as she sorted through the rest of the parts on the bench. "Apparently the Cabal raided a nearby Vex site."

"Huh. What are you doing with them?"

"Eventually? I hope to build swords. It will take me time to finish them." She set a half-dozen parts in front of Dellander. "Alright. I can remove the circuits and shave some of the metal off underneath. Or, I can weld one of these onto the bottom of the grip."

Dellander examined the parts. He picked up a oval shaped plate about two inches long and tested its weight. "Try this one," he said, handing the plate and his pistol to Elva.

Elva took the pistol and unloaded the chamber, then carefully set it on the table. "This is a diode of sorts," she said as she picked up her welding pen and started fusing the plate to the metal center of the grip. "It draws a current from the surrounding network."

"What does that mean for my gun?" Dellander asked.

"No clue," Elva said. She handed the pistol back.

Dellander twirled it a few times, holstered it, then drew and snapped it into a stance. Perfect. "Yep. That did it."

"Excelent. You should have no trouble blowing various aliens' brains out," Elva said. She smiled, and something melted inside him.

 _Crap_.

"So were finished here?" Dellander asked, suddenly eager to leave. He walked to the door.

"Well I've done all I can for your pistol," Elva said, standing up and trailing after him. "But don't you want to talk about something else…?"

Dellander paused in the doorway. "Like what?"

Elva stepped in front of him and stared at him with her fiery golden eyes. "Like last night…"

Dellander swallowed. She was standing _very_ close to him. "Well, I uh-"

Elva lunged and kissed him. His breath caught in his throat as she pushed him against the wall and pressed her body against his. The kiss was passionate and savory, and when she finally puled back, they were both breathing hard.

"I, uh, I should go and…" he stammered.

"Oh Dellander," Elva whispered. She drew the curtain closed and peeled off her tunic. "You're exactly where you need to be."

* * *

Elva lay on the cot beside Dellander, watching his chest slowly rise and fall. His body was lean and firm. Not bulky and rippling with muscles like a Titan, but still very fit. She still didn't quite understand exercising and staying in shape. Her body didn't change. She was exactly the same weight she was when she woke up on the shores of Venus. Her mechanical limbs were no stronger or weaker than they were a month, or a year ago.

They both barely fit on the little cot. Dellander, flat on his back, took up most of the space. She lay on her side, perched on the edge, with one arm and leg draped over Dellander.

Elva sighed and smiled. Her insides were warm and happy, in a way she'd never quite felt before. What else had she missed out on these last seven years, without even realizing it?

She looked up at Dellander's face. He noticed her and smiled back.

"Thank you," she said, "That was nice. I should have tried it sooner?"

Dellander frowned. "Wait. You're not saying that was your first time, are you?"

"Well, I mean…" she mumbled. Her face suddenly felt warm.

He eyed her. "This was really the first time you've had sex."

Elva nodded. "I mean, I tried it a few times on my own, but I haven't had time for a relationship. We uh, not everyone sleeps around like you do."

"Hey that's not fair," he complained with a mock pout. "You're only the…" He counted out fingers on his hand. "-fifth women I've slept with. Besides, I'm sure you had some experience in your past life. You seemed to know what you were doing."

"Only five huh," Elva mumbled, self-consciously glancing away. How could she explain it to him? She didn't _have_ a past life. Her body was created by the Vex, and brought to life, for the first time, by her Ghost, seven years ago. What would he even think, what would any of her teammates think, if she told them the truth?

No. _No!_ She would not dwell on that. Her teammates were her friends. She trusted them, more than anything else in this life of constant strife. She had to believe that when the time came to tell, they would accept it as a part of who she was, just as she was finally beginning to.

She sighed again and rested her head on Dellander's shoulder. Her fingers idly traced patterns of circuit boards across his chest as her thoughts wandered.

It was only two months since Praedyth revealed her true nature. So much had changed since that day, yet so many things were the same. She'd always known she was different, now she just knew why.

The other Exos she knew often spoke of scattered memories, fragmented flashes of their past lives. She had none of that. She'd woken up with the basic knowledge of life, but no specific memories. Her mind was created as a blank slate. Where did her personality even come from?

Most days, she almost forgot her idiosyncrasies. She could almost pretend she was normal. Then days like today came along and smacked her in the face. How could she have gone without such a wonderful thing as sex for seven years?

She pushed those thoughts away, and just let herself enjoy the moment. She wanted it to last forever. Just lay here on the bed, feeling the warmth of Dellander's skin, forgotten by the world outside…

Unfortunately, the world outside still remembered them.

Only a few minutes later, a knock came from the door.

"Coming!" Elva called. She moved to get up and half rolled, half fell off the cot. "Ow," she muttered, rubbing her shoulder as she stood up. Beside her, Dellander watched with a twinkle in his eye.

She crossed to the door and pulled the curtain aside. Telysa leaned against the opposite wall. The Hunter looked Elva up and down and frowned. She stepped forward and peered in to the room, noting Dellander getting dressed beside the bed.

"Why are you…" Elva trailed off and looked down, realizing she'd neglected to put clothes on, and was in fact naked. "Oh."

"Well," Telysa said, folding her arms.

Elva cleared her throat. "Did you need something, Tel?"

"Oh, right," Telysa said, smiling. "Mariel and Damien just turned up. I told them to get some rest, but they're insisting on meeting now. So we're meeting in the courtyard as soon as Lin and the others get back from the shard."

She turned away with a flourish and strode down the hall, her boots clomping on the metal.

Elva groaned and leaned her forehead against the wall. "That was embarrassing."

Dellander simply laughed.

* * *

Mariel-3 paced in the shadows, her cloak clinging to her shoulders like a funeral pall.

The courtyard wasn't much. Walls on three sides, the fourth open to let the light spill in as the sun sank to its inevitable death. A row of uneven pillars lined the sides of the courtyard, separating it from the covered walkway. Damien sat at the base of one of those pillars, his salmon red robes vivid in the late afternoon.

She paused at the edge of the sunlight. The folds of her cloak swirled around her, pulled by an unseen current. The dark un-cloth was a comforting presence, an anchor to something deeper.

The Martian sun felt intense, searing even, after spending four long months patrolling the Dreadnaught. She and Damien were _so_ close to discovering the source of the perturbations in the Ascendant Realm. And now their discoveries would have to wait, put on hold by a Cabal invasion.

Mariel started pacing again. She'd thought that after a more than a century in this life, nothing could surprise her. Well, she probably should have been used to being wrong by now.

Other members of the team trickled in. Telysa first. The Bladedancer leaned against one of the pillars and basked in the sunlight, a smile on her lips. Elva came next, wringing her hands, a distant expression on her face. Then Dellander, his shirt rumpled, but his expression unreadable.

Finally, Linvana emerged from one of the entrances, Ulaina, Cannard, and Brontis trailing behind her. The team was complete.

Perhaps calling themselves a team was a bit of a stretch, considering this was the first time they'd all been in one place since the SIVA crisis ten months ago. Nothing like the threat of pending extinction to bring friends together.

"Right," Linvana said, clasping her hands before her, "We're all here, and by some miracle, we're all still alive. The attack on the City was…just as devastating as you can imagine. It's been three days now, and as it stands, we don't know what's happened since."

"Zavala evacuated Earth," Dellander said, "It's all over the radio, but he didn't say where he was going."

"I have no doubt this Red Legion would hunt them down if he had," Damien said.

"Where would they even go?" Ulaina asked, "Everywhere else is crawling with Fallen, Hive, Vex, or more Cabal."

"Nevermind that," Elva interjected, "The battle lasted only a few hours. That wasn't nearly enough time to get _everyone_ on Dead Orbit's ships. If Zavala ordered the Forces of the City to retreat from Earth, that means there's still thousands trapped there."

"Elva," Linvana said, "You said there was a Cabal fleet near Mercury too?"

The Sunsinger nodded. "They were scanning for something in the mantle."

Linvana rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Whatever they're after, we can probably assume the inner system is locked down. Getting back to Earth is going to be difficult."

"What are we going to do once we get there?" Cannard asked, "We have no Light, and barely a handful of weapons between all of us."

"I met a Titan in Old Kenya," Dellander piped up, "She gave me the coordinates to some sort of refugee camp in Europe. I figure there would be as good of a place to start as any."

"I'm inclined to agree with Dellander," Linvana declared, "Any objections?"

A thick silence settled over the courtyard.

"Uh, captain?" Brontis said, "I'm always up for a good fight, but how much do you expect us to do? We're not invincible anymore. We're just nine ordinary people with a bunch of guns. You can't seriously expect us to fight an entire army of these overgrown turtles."

A quick glance at everyone else showed they were thinking the same thing.

Linvana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I honestly wish I had an answer for you." She looked around at the Guardians assembled in the courtyard. "We've fought monsters together, killed gods. The universe threw some of its worst at us, and by some miracle, we survived. Yes, it's different this time. The Cabal stole our Light. I still can barely believe it.

"But as Guardians, we're more than our Light. We're protectors, of the City, and of humanity. Right now, we're facing extinction. It might not be a lot, but we _can_ still fight. And there are people out there who need us. If we don't at least try to help them, then we don't deserve to be called Guardians in the first place."

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Brontis shrugged. "Eh, what the hell. Not like we got much left to lose. Who knows. Maybe we're meant to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. I can live with that. At least I'll shake this damn dream I've been having."

Telysa snorted. "Dying heroically so you stop having bad dreams? Only you would consider that a favorable deal Brontis."

"Hey," Brontis complained, "It's an annoying dream. It's been the same one, every time I close my eyes since we lost our Light."

Across the courtyard, Ulaina straightened, a puzzled expression on her face. "You've been having a reoccurring dream since the attack?"

"Uh, yeah?" Brontis said, confused.

"Describe it," Ulaina ordered.

"Well uh, when it starts, I'm flying, around the Traveler I think. There's this bird with me, and then I'm falling. I hit the water, and then I sink past a bunch of weird shit, until I'm floating above a forest with something big and white jutting out of it. Why do you want to know?"

Mariel froze, an icy sensation shooting down her spine. _Impossible_.

Ulaina stepped forward, looking like someone stepped on her grave. "I've been having that exact same dream."

"So have I," Telysa said.

"Me too," Cannard added.

A quick look at the rest of their faces told Mariel everything she needed to know.

She closed her eyes as they all began talking about the dream. Flying around the Traveler, then sinking past bodies, pyramids, and celestial implements of war, before finally arriving at the broken Shard of a sleeping god.

Why couldn't it have been her nightmare alone? Why did the past insist on haunting her so?

"It's not a dream," Mariel whispered.

The courtyard went silent, and all eyes turned to her.

"It's not a dream," Mariel repeated, "It's a vision."

"A vision," Linvana said slowly, "Like, a Thanatonaut's vision?"

"Exactly like that," Mariel answered. She hesitated. What came next, she wouldn't be able to take back. She'd tried so hard to move on from her past. And now they _all_ had to go back.

"That place you see at the end of the dream," Mariel continued, making a decision, "It's a real place in Europe, deep inside the Dead Zone. There lies a Shard of the Traveler, the largest known. In fact, this camp Dellander speaks of is only a short ways away."

Linvana frowned. "And how are you sure it's the same shard? Have you been there before?"

"I…yes." Best to just leave it at that. They did not need to go into the details right now.

Mariel rubbed her forehead. This was going to be difficult. "Look. I thought that it was just me having a bad dream, but if we've all been seeing the Shard, it has to mean something. We all have residual traces of Light in our bodies, and they're resonating with the Shard. For some reason, it wants us to go seek it out. And if we want any chance of fighting the Red Legion, we'd better listen."


End file.
